Being a BYU alumnus with a blog, I feel that I should comment on BYU's declaration of independence from the Mountain West in football.
I love it!!!!
I, living in Kentucky (or anywhere east of the Rockies, for that matter), will finally be able to watch BYU on TV. Every game. Beginning next season, every BYU home football game will be shown to a national audience on an ESPN network or BYUtv. How great is that??
Oh and it's not just football, either. They'll be a lot of basketball games on TV as well.
It's not just me being able to watch BYU on TV, however. It's recruits. I don't see how this move could hurt BYU's recruiting abilities. Come join our team, you will be on TV all the time. If I was a recruit from Michigan, that would have been hard for me - there's no way my family would have been able to watch me play. No longer.
Does not being in a conference limit our bowl opportunities?
Well, first, I am sick and tired of the Las Vegas Bowl. Does going independent kill our chances at making it 10 Las Vegas Bowl appearances in a row? Yes. Boo-hoo.
I guess I'm not as concerned about it being harder to get a BCS appearance because I didn't think the MWC would ever be an automatic BCS conference.
If BYU is ever actually good enough to get a BCS bowl apperance...well, we'll cross that bridge when we get there. I don't think we've been good enough yet.
It's going to be difficult - the bar is raised, and BYU will have to work hard to get a good schedule and be competitive, year-in and year-out. Notre Dame hasn't been so good in that department lately.
However, kudos to BYU for not sitting around and moping (like I sort of wanted to do) when Utah got invited to the PAC 10. (By the way, I'm happy for Utah. Good for them, I hope they do well. I may start to cheer for them if they're not playing us. Maybe.) BYU went out, used their competitive advantage, and took a step forward. It's a bold step, and I don't just like it - I love it. Except now I may have a reason to pay the extra money and get cable.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Painting.
I know that nobody likes to watch paint dry, but paint drying really does change things and therefore it should happen periodically.
Take our guest bathroom, for instance. We decided on a grayish hue. “Silver Spoon”, was what the official name was. Of course once we paint it, (We means Torrie, in this instance. She did the project while I was at work one day. Fabulous woman.) it’s definitely purple.
I was understandably nervous, then, when we undertook the project of painting our great room. Since we moved in it has always been white, and we were definitely ready for some color in our lives. We settled on a color called “Shoreline Haze”, which we thought was a tan, but I was worried that after painting the entire wall it was going to end up be neon pink.
Take our guest bathroom, for instance. We decided on a grayish hue. “Silver Spoon”, was what the official name was. Of course once we paint it, (We means Torrie, in this instance. She did the project while I was at work one day. Fabulous woman.) it’s definitely purple.
I was understandably nervous, then, when we undertook the project of painting our great room. Since we moved in it has always been white, and we were definitely ready for some color in our lives. We settled on a color called “Shoreline Haze”, which we thought was a tan, but I was worried that after painting the entire wall it was going to end up be neon pink.
Cute picture of Pregnant Torrie painting
Well, eight hours later, we had the majority of the room finished. At first I thought there was a greenish hue in a certain light, but I don’t really notice that anymore. However, I do notice our crown molding and how well the color matches the hardwood floors and the kitchen.
We tackled the few remaining spots, the hall, and the baby’s room a couple weekends ago. We’ll probably end up painting the guest room the same color as well. (Five gallons of paint sure goes a long way.)
My job was to paint the parts of the wall that people don't really see.
Project: Successful!
Big difference.
Next up: Decorating those walls with tasteful art and photography.
Electoral College
Lawmakers in Massachusetts recently passed a law intended to get around the Electoral College system and ensure that the winner of the presidential election is determined by the national popular vote.
There are a few states with such laws – Illinois, New Jersey, Hawaii, Maryland, and Washington. If enough states passed such laws, whoever wins the popular vote would win the presidency.
Okay first off…..isn’t that unconstitutional? Presidential selection is determined by the Constitution. If people want to change the process, don’t you need to amend the Constitution?
Secondly – one of the main arguments in favor of the law is that the current system is confusing and causes presidential candidates to focus just on a handful of battleground states. Entire portions of the country are ignored because they are too democratic or republican to waste a candidate’s time.
While that may be somewhat true (but not all the way true), changing the process to having the president picked by a popular vote, however, wouldn’t end any disparities. Instead, candidates would only focus on areas where there are lots of people. There’s no way a candidate would devote any attention to a place like Lexington, Kentucky when he/she could go to more populated cities. Smaller towns and rural areas would be shut out of the political process even more.
On a somewhat related note - often read articles in major newspapers (major meaning…from a big city, like New York or Los Angeles) how crazy and wrong it is that a senator from Montana, who represents 30K people, has just as much power as a senator from California who represents 30MM people. Well…that’s the compromise the framers of the Constitution had to make, otherwise people from Montana would matter even less then they already do.
There are a few states with such laws – Illinois, New Jersey, Hawaii, Maryland, and Washington. If enough states passed such laws, whoever wins the popular vote would win the presidency.
Okay first off…..isn’t that unconstitutional? Presidential selection is determined by the Constitution. If people want to change the process, don’t you need to amend the Constitution?
Secondly – one of the main arguments in favor of the law is that the current system is confusing and causes presidential candidates to focus just on a handful of battleground states. Entire portions of the country are ignored because they are too democratic or republican to waste a candidate’s time.
While that may be somewhat true (but not all the way true), changing the process to having the president picked by a popular vote, however, wouldn’t end any disparities. Instead, candidates would only focus on areas where there are lots of people. There’s no way a candidate would devote any attention to a place like Lexington, Kentucky when he/she could go to more populated cities. Smaller towns and rural areas would be shut out of the political process even more.
On a somewhat related note - often read articles in major newspapers (major meaning…from a big city, like New York or Los Angeles) how crazy and wrong it is that a senator from Montana, who represents 30K people, has just as much power as a senator from California who represents 30MM people. Well…that’s the compromise the framers of the Constitution had to make, otherwise people from Montana would matter even less then they already do.
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